Bullion Johannesburg: Men, Mines, And The Challenge Of Conflict

About This Book

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Bullion Johannesburg: Men, mines, and the challenge of conflict

John Lang

Extra Large Hardcover

BullionJohannesburg, named after the telegraphic address of the Chamber of Mines, tells the story of the Chamber from its foundation soon after the proclamation of the Rand gold-fields in 1886, up to the year of its centenary. The book gives the first full account of the genesis of the Chamber, and goes on to record the conflict that arose between mining men and the Kruger regime as the mining industry endeavored to establish itself in a rural wilderness.

It discusses the involvement of mining personalities in the conspiracy that led to the Jameson Raid and the Johannesburg Rising of 1895, and analyses the events that followed, leading to war between the Transvaal and Britain.

Bullion Johannesburg covers the reconstruction after the war, and the relationship between the Chamber and the Milner Administration. As the escalating demand for new capital and technology to mine the deep levels confirmed the essential function of the mining houses, so did the need for men to work the mines institute the Chamber’s enduring preoccupation with labour. The book examines the interlude in which 50 0001abourers from China filled gaps in the black labour force, and describes the political storms that led to their repatriation.

It gives a fresh perspective of the political drama that saw the resurgence of Afrikaner nationalism and the increasing disunity among the British population of the Transvaal, on which Botha and Smuts were swept to power in 1907 to begin the long Afrikaner dominance of government in South Africa. The book recalls the tensions and the patterns of protest that quickly emerged in the new Union of South Africa, and shows how a structure of labour relations, long to endure, was hammered out on the Rand.

It casts new light on the course of events that resulted in the 1922 Strike on the Rand and the Revolution that followed, and discusses the aftermath of this violent clash: the coming to power of the Nationalist/Labour Pact. Government, headed by General Hertkog, and the fateful entrenchment in South Africa of segregation and the colour bar.

It goes on to describe the aftermath of the country’s departure from the gold standard at the end of 1932, and the rapid economic progress, based on the higher gold price, which made possible expansion into new mining areas, an advance interrupted, but not halted, by World War 2 and the turbulent days that followed.

John Lang brings his story up to the present, illuminating the technological and social advances that took place. He describes the confidential background to the gold crises of the 60’s when the Chamber in its most secret councils faced the prospect that the United States was prepared to force down the gold price below the $35 which had reigned since 1934. And it outlines the onward march of the mineral industry, creating for the West a new position of critical dependence on South Africa as the source of strategic materials.

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